ECE ILLINOIS Professor Gabriel Popescu and animal sciences professor Matthew B. Wheeler collaborated through the Beckman Institute to develop Gradient Light Interference Microscopy (GLIM).
Written by Joseph Park, ECE ILLINOIS
Gabriel PopescuThe University of Illinois has been awarded the 2018 Innovation Award by Microscopy Today, the official magazine of the Microscopy Society of America (MSA), for the development of Gradient Light Interference Microscopy (GLIM), a low-coherence interference microscopy system.
The Microscopy Today Innovation Award is given to projects that advanced microscopy in areas including light microscopy, scanning probe microscopy, and electron microscopy. ECE ILLINOIS Professor Gabriel Popescu and animal sciences professor Matthew B. Wheeler collaborated through the Beckman Institute to develop GLIM which is a new method that solves the challenge of imaging thick, multicellular samples.
For traditional biomedical microscopy, images are produced when light is shined through thin slices of tissues. There are other methods of integrating chemical or physical markers which help the operator find the objects they are looking for within a thick sample, but those markers can be toxic to living tissue according to Popescu.
GLIM allows for researchers to produce images from multiple depths and compile them into a single 3-D image by probing deep into thick samples and controlling the path length over which light travels through the specimen. Popescu's team hopes to apply GLIM technology towards human fertility research and treatment.